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We’ll call it a round-up

Every now and then I come across a few things that I think are worth posting about, but none of them are really meaty enough in and of themselves to warrant a full post. Then I end up doing a post like this, where I squash together a bunch of stuff and pretend I totally meant for it to be that way. Just play along.

McDonald’s will use Shrek to feature its salads, milk, apple slices and other products introduced in the last 3 years as the No. 1 restaurant company faced mounting criticism its food was not only unhealthy, but also contributing to the increase in overweight kids in the United States.

A Happy Meal with Apple Dippers, all-white-meat chicken McNuggets, and low-fat milk will be featured in television commercials and on posters in McDonald’s restaurants. Shrek will also appear on packaging for the milk and apples.

Good job, Shrek. I guess there aren’t many campaigns suggesting people just cook their kids a healthy dinner, so, um, way to push the apples.

Item the second: Nickelodeon video game proliferation.

I guess it wasn’t enough that I was going to try to keep my son from finding out about the new Ben 10 video game. Nope, it turns out that there’s going to be a whole slew of upcoming video games based on popular Nick shows. Great. Titles will include games based on cartoon favorites such as Spongebob Squarepants and Avatar, as well as games based on shows like Zoey 101 and Drake & Josh. Whomever has the most teen angst wins! Well, maybe that’s not exactly how it’ll be, but whatever.

Item the third: I hope you didn’t miss it.

Did you make it out for Free Comic Book Day? I hope you did. Even if you didn’t, you have to check out the Talking Shop piece about it over at Newsarama. This thing’s practically got a cult following, and their write-up is superb. An excerpt:

Patrick Brower, general manager of Graham Crackers Comics in downtown Chicago, said there were far more people this year than last. The store had Robert Kirkman signing for a few hours early in the day, particularly his Astounding Wolf-Man title that was offered among the free titles, but Brower said crowds continued after the creator left. “It wound up being our highest grossing Saturday in recent memory, possibly ever, and directly contributed the best single week of sales we’ve ever recorded,” he said.

There you have it. Three unrelated things you didn’t even know you wanted to know. No need to thank me.